


first time out the gate

by Trell (orphan_account)



Category: Hellboy (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hellboy Movie 'Verse, Gen, Hellhounds, Samael - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Trell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They thought they'd checked this place; fakes and reproductions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	first time out the gate

“Clarence, baby,” the fish-woman was saying through the door—through her radio, really, but she was leaning against the door as she said it, “be careful in there. That baddie's a big one. It’s old as balls, and it’s definitely hungry.”

“ _Thank you for the warning._ ” Castiel’s voice rumbled through all their radios, low register scraping through the speakers, and Dean winced but didn’t turn it down. He’d get used to it, he figured, and missing a whisper would be worse than being made to jump once by a yell.

To the fish-woman, he said, "Jesus." _Meg_ , he reminded himself as the inky black eyes turned in his direction. “He just goes in alone like that? No backup?”

Meg tapped off her mic before she answered him. “Trust me,” she said, “we figured out about half a century ago it’s not a good idea to send Clarence in with other people. He’s got a thing with—orders.”

She looked dodgy, and something about that didn’t make sense, so Dean prodded, “What, he doesn’t follow them?”

Meg sighed, and rolled her eyes. Dean wasn’t sure how he knew, given that the pupils seemed to shift regardless of where she was looking, and were pitch black and occasionally slicked by double lids and hidden behind goggles besides, but he could feel her doing it, anyway. “No,” she said at last, “he definitely follows them. Think, you say ‘jump’, he says ‘how high’, even if he’s in the middle of a firefight. It’s kind of a problem.”

“What,” said Dean. Naomi hadn’t briefed him on this. Why he was having to hear it from the centuries-old tank-bred fish lady, he didn’t know. It seemed important.

“I’m not saying any more than that,” Meg told him. “He doesn’t like people to know.”

“Uh,” said Dean. He didn’t think this was sufficient reason, under the circumstances, but he said, “Okay,” anyway.

Meg clicked her mic back on and said, “Clarence?”

“ _Bodies,_ ” Castiel responded. “ _Four of them. Some sort of thick acidic residue eating away at the clothes._ ” And, sounding like he was quoting someone: “ _Time to hit the books, Sister Blue._ ”

“Oh, no, you don’t get to use my own lines on me,” Meg complained, but Dean saw that she went for the big wooden box of tomes Castiel had hauled in with him—if you could call carrying something that large easily in one hand ‘hauling’—anyway. “You’re the scholar, not me.”

“ _And yet here I am,_ ” Castiel said, and Dean thought he heard the familiar clicking and locking sounds of a firearm being loaded, “ _inside with the gun, and you outside with the books._ ”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Meg, and went unerringly for the tome rightmost in the box. Dean supposed they must’ve talked about which volume would be useful earlier, while Dean was maneuvering the garbage truck that carried them into position beside the museum. “Be careful.”

And just like that it was silent except for the slight sounds of movement filtering through the radio, and the rustle of Meg leafing through the pages of the old book with webbed fingers. They were surprisingly deft. Dean found himself feeling useless, standing there with his gun and the blinking red tracker light at his belt, surrounded by a dozen other, perfectly capable agents, and Naomi herself—looking thin-lipped and frail, but there nonetheless, leaning on her cane and a rosary dangling out of her sleeve.

He wondered anew why she’d chosen _him_ , when Meg and Castiel clearly worked so well together already; when Castiel had proven earlier that he trusted Agent Balthazar but was wary of Dean, hardly willing to acknowledge his presence save for in the context of the job. It seemed the only thing Dean was here for was to wear the twin to Castiel’s tracker, and any agent among them could have done that.

He watched Naomi a moment longer, seeing her eyes flick between Meg and the door, worry creasing her brow; and then he shook his head and waited, because damn it, impatience didn’t serve anyone. He’d be useful when they were damn and ready; he had a gun, and maybe his bullets weren’t filled with holy water and myrrh and white oak or whatever the hell else, but they still packed a punch.

Beside him, Meg said suddenly, “Clarence. I’ve got something.”

“ _Hit me,_ ” Castiel said, like the words were ones he’d learned to mimic but still didn’t quite get. Dean wondered if he needed the etymology of every phrase explained to him to use it with ease.

“ ‘Samael,’ ” Meg read, “ ‘the Desolate One’—”

“ _Wait,_ ” said Castiel, stopping her abruptly, and, “ _oh._ ”

Dean said, “What is it?”

“ _Wait,_ ” Castiel repeated, and then there was a bang that made all of them jump, and another, and the sound of heavy footfalls—too many to be Castiel's alone—and Castiel growling, “ _Engaging the target!_ ”

“How many!” Dean prompted, and his hand went instinctively for his gun. Naomi reached out and put a warning hand on his shoulder, though, so he didn’t follow through on the impulse to unbar the door and shove his way in.

“ _One,_ ” There was another explosive discharge that Dean heard just as well through the door as over the radio, feedback making him cringe and turn the volume down after all. “ _A hellhound, head like a gorgon_ —”

Meg overrode them both even as the sound of shattering glass made their radios crackle. “You need to hear this right now,” she said, firmly.

“ _I’m listening,_ ” Castiel grunted. There was a solid-sounding _THUMP_ that reverberated through the floor all the way from the inside of the sealed exhibit, and Dean could hear him breathing heavily away from his mic. It sounded like he’d gotten the hellhound down.

“ ‘Samael, the Desolate One,’ ” Meg repeated, “ ‘Lord of the Shadows; Son of Nergal, Harbinger of Pestilence and Seed of Destruction’—”

“ _Meg,_ ” Castiel said, and there was another click. Dean, who had been trying to count the number of shots, thought he was on his sixth bullet, but he couldn’t be sure. There had been three clips of six each on his belt when he had gone in, but Dean didn’t know if there were more hidden under his jacket.

More things he should’ve been briefed on, he thought.

“ 'Hound of Resurrection,' ” Meg finished. “Clarence, that fucker’s going to get back up.”

There was a silence, and Dean thought anyone else would’ve been starting in on a litany of curses. Instead, Castiel just said, “ _The body isn’t where it was a moment ago._ ”

“Shit,” said Meg, and Dean thought, _yeah_. This time, he did wrap his fingers around the grip of his gun.

“ _How do I kill it,_ ” Castiel pressed, from the other end. His breathing had slowed, like he was listening, no longer so audible even over the mic. “ _Meg, I need to know how to make certain that it stays down._ ”

Meg flipped another page with sucker-adorned fingers—fucking _weird,_ Dean couldn’t help but think, and he realized she must’ve heard the thought when she shot him a glare—and said, “The geezer that wrote this neglected to say.”

Castiel made a frustrated noise.

Whatever he meant to say next was lost under the inhuman roar that rang through the building, loud enough to shake the glass in the room they were in, and then something—judging by the sound over the radio, _Castiel_ —hit the door from in the inside, hard enough to make it bow out and for the latch to go flying over the heads of the agents.

Dean yanked his gun out of his holster, and Balthazar barked, “Front side, right now, everybody move!” even as Dean called back, “I’m going ‘round back to cover him!”

The animalistic shrieking continued, too-loud over the radio, but Dean didn’t dare take his hands off his gun or lose his connection to Cas as he bolted around the corner and down the corridor that lead to the emergency exit out back. He could hear stone shattering through the communicator, and Castiel grunting in pain in synchrony, like the hellhound was throwing him against the walls or the floor.

“Jesus,” Dean hissed, and kicked his way out through the emergency exit and onto a fourth-floor fire escape just as the vaulted window of the exhibit blew out in a shower of glass to his left.

Castiel went sailing out, tails of his coat snapping around him as he twisted in the air—flashes of red and that massive stone hand swinging out, bracing for the fall, sparkling shards falling with him like rain—and then he was smashing into the ground below with punishing force, the concrete buckling and cracking around him.

The dumpster he landed beside slammed back into the wall with a clang. Dean ran down the fire escape stairs, taking the steps several at a time and glancing the corners painfully with his sides, ignoring the clamour of the agents over the radio as they spread out to cover the hallways inside. He was pretty damn sure the monster wasn’t going that way, not if the sounds behind him and Castiel’s form below him were any indication.

He was pretty sure even Castiel couldn’t take that kind of fall without injury.

Steam rising from vents in the alley below blocked his view of Castiel, and he swore. Over the radio, he heard Castiel say, “ _Who are you._ ”

Dean gasped, “Cas?” in answer over the radio as he swung down to the second floor of the steps. He wished he could make his way down faster without breaking an ankle.

It became clear Castiel wasn’t talking to him. Dean heard, “ _My true name is no one else’s concern,_ ” and a rustle and the now too-familiar click of Castiel’s gun: and then he was past the steam and too-far down the alleyway from Castiel, who was standing pointing his gun towards the street as a massive, hulking form dropped behind him into the alley.

The hellhound, Dean surmised.

Dean shouted, “Behind you!” even as Castiel was already swinging around to face it. Neither of them were fast enough; Dean saw a slick, too-long tongue lash out of the monster’s maw—and it _was_ a monster, tentacles moving erratically around its nightmarish head like a halo, thick saliva dripping onto the ground and eating into the pavement—and wrap around Castiel’s left arm, sinking a hook into his flesh.

The hook went deep, and Dean could see the tongue squeezing, squeezing harder around the wrist like the hellhound intended to wrest Castiel’s gun away, and he wondered dazedly how something like that could be smart enough to understand the tactic: and then he wasn’t wondering anything anymore, because he was in range at last and raising his own weapon, firing round after round into the monster, the monster’s tongue, any part he could reach that would make it let go of Cas.

It screamed. It screamed like a tortured child, a horrible, keening sound that rose out of it even as the tongue retracted and it writhed on the ground under the barrage of Dean’s bullets. Castiel staggered sideways, out of the way, and Dean kept firing until he emptied the clip. Until he was sure he’d bought them time.

A stone hand the size of a fucking car tire closed around his arm. “What are you _doing here,_ ” Castiel said, and he sounded as harsh as Dean had yet heard him. Just Dean’s luck that the first real sign of emotion Dean got out of the guy was anger, and directed at him.

“Helping you!” Dean spat back, and Castiel dragged the both of them behind the side of the dumpster, out of the line of fire of the creature’s fucking projectile tongue.

“Stay down,” Castiel said, and shoved him to the ground. Damn, he was strong; Dean’s knees buckled, and it was only good reflexes that saved him from landing painfully on his ass. Castiel slid down beside him, face drawn in pain as he snapped open the barrel of his gun. “If you want to help,” he went on, “load this.” And he tossed the gun into Dean’s lap while he fumbled for something inside his jacket with his injured left hand, the human hand.

A bullet filled with murky green bullet joined the gun in Dean's lap seconds later, while Dean was still thinking that the stone hand had to be as inconvenient as much as it was an asset and trying to listen for Samael. It wasn’t shrieking anymore.

Castiel said, oddly calm again despite their position, “It’s a tracking bullet. You’ll need to crack the pin.”

“Got it,” said Dean, and did so. The liquid in the bullet lit a bright neon green, and he pushed it inside the barrel before proffering the gun back to Castiel.

Castiel reached for it, and Dean said, “Holy _fucking shit_ , what is _on your arm_ ,” because there was something attached to his left forearm through the tear in the leather, something that looked like a cross between a bug and an overgrown parasite, wriggling and sucking deeper into the flesh.

“Oh,” said Castiel, and stared at it.

Samael chose that exact moment to tear through the metal of the dumpster at their back, tongue piercing to Dean’s right—he ducked—and between them and to Castiel’s right, missing as they lurched away. The bug-parasite-thing was still attached to Castiel’s arm, and Dean managed to yell, “What the hell is that thing?!” while going for his spare clip.

“I don’t know,” Castiel said, like it was a topic that could stand contemplation and not some kind of alien sinking its teeth into his arm.

He tore it away with his stone hand. It pulled off with an awful wet sound, and Castiel said, dryly, “Perhaps I’ll go ask,” and before Dean knew what was happening he’d tossed the thing into Dean’s lap and was twisting away around the side of the dumpster, gun at the ready.

Dean made an undignified sound and juggled it for the space of a second before batting it away. He loaded his gun, fast, made sure the parasite was staying put, and leaned around the twisted metal edge of the dumpster, ready to provide cover fire.

He looked out just in time to see Castiel fire the tracking bullet unwaveringly into the chest of the monster, which was balancing on the high banister wall above him; and to see it fall down the other side, writhing.

The other side, which lead into the street.

Towards civilians.

Castiel was taking a running jump towards the banister.

“Oh, shit,” said Dean, and clicked on his wrist mic as he sprang forward to follow. “Dean to Red Team, we are _headed for civilians._ ”

Over the radio, Meg’s voice said—rather breathlessly—“Your first time out and Clarence is already out terrorizing the streets of New York? Not the best first impression, Dean-o.”

“Shut up, Meg,” Dean said, and pulled himself on top of another dumpster that was up against the banister as Cas reached the top and vaulted over, the flick of his red tail the last thing Dean saw as he scrambled after. “Do we have eyes on him or not?”

Balthazar’s voice overrode the channel. “The only one with eyes on Cas is you, monkey-man, so you’d better not fucking lose him.”

“Thanks, asshole,” said Dean, and yanked himself up and over the banister, landing on his feet in an oil-slick puddle below. Up ahead, Castiel skidded out of his sight and into the street, following the glowing green trail that had splattered out of the monster’s belly as a result of the tracking bullet.

At least it made both of them easier to follow. Dean chased them around the corner, heart pounding. There were screams up ahead, a truck horn bleating and people out in the street for Halloween— _I’m chasing real monsters on Halloween,_ and Dean wondered if that qualified as dramatic irony—and he called “Crazy costumes, huh?” to a terrified-looking group on the side of the road as he passed.

Probably no one was stupid enough to fall for Samael or Castiel being in costume, but then, the human mind was pretty good at accepting excuses for things it couldn’t handle. Dean knew that one first-hand.

The commotion increased as Samael, Castiel, and Dean ran into thicker crowds and heavier traffic. Agents’ voices were overlapping on the radio, Balthazar shouting over all of them, and Dean could hear a helicopter descending somewhere behind them even as he weaved around shrieking men and women and shoved aside people that weren’t smart enough to get out of the way. In the street, Castiel jumped onto the roof of a car after Samael, which leapt over the vehicle like it was nothing and sank claws into the next one, sending it into a tailspin.

If Dean’s charge got killed from getting hit by a car while chasing a monster, Dean wasn’t sure he’d ever live it down, nevermind losing his job. He shot out after them into the street, nearly getting flattened by two different cars himself, and was almost on Castiel’s tail when he miscalculated—

—just by a fraction of a second—

—and got clipped by the side-view mirror of a sedan, hitting his shoulder and sending him flying face-down into the next lane, shock coursing through his whole arm and into his ribs, making his ears ring and every nerve pulse with pain.

He had time enough to think _not the best first impression_ in a tone that sounded suspiciously like Meg’s, and then there were headlights hurtling towards him and he couldn’t move because his vision had gone momentarily blurry and his brain was too busy screaming that he was hurt to get his limbs moving, and shit, shit, _shit._

Brown leather swung in front of his eyes, blocking his view. Dean was aware of Castiel shouting, and the light was still careening closer.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

There was a sound like an explosion, another shock running through the ground under him, and the light was gone, swinging around, something huge and dark passing over them—

Castiel had hit the car, Dean realized. The thing overhead was the car, upside down, being carried by its own momentum and an impact against an immovable object over them and into a clear patch of the street.

He would’ve felt bad for the occupants, except Castiel was lifting him bodily out of the street and his arm felt like it was broken, and if Castiel was here Dean was pretty sure he’d lost sight of Samael, too.

“Are you all right,” Castiel said urgently, as soon as Dean was on the sidewalk. He craned down to look into Dean's eyes, probably to check his pupils. “ _Dean._ Tell me if I can leave you alone.”

“Yeah,” Dean coughed, and, “yeah, thanks for saving my ass, I’ll—shit—I’ll send backup.”

Castiel paused only to nod, and then he was gone, racing down the street with his coat billowing behind him like wings.

Dean groaned, got a good look at the glowing green trail on the sidewalk as he curled against the pavement, and told his radio, “They’re headed for the subway, _Jesus,_ ” before pressing his head to the stone and breathing through the shock.


End file.
